[Chillax: There are NO SPOILERS here.] 

It was pandemonium in Harvard Square on Friday night. At around 11:20, I was on the way back from a friend’s party celebrating the arrival of the last Harry Potter at midnight. (Yes, I have crazy, nerdy friends. I’m proud of them.) Already at 8:15, when I had headed out, there was a sizable crowd parked outside of the Harvard Bookstore on Massachusetts Ave (bookstore not on the map below) - kids in wizard robes, old men carrying broomsticks, middle-aged women sporting drawn-on thunderbolt scars, the generic hippy, the pink-haired punk, a few people who looked like they hadn’t showered in five days in anticipation of the book, you know, the usual. I passed it on the way back - the crowd had quadrupled in size, but things seemed to be pretty much in control.  This crowd had, apparently, pre-ordered the book days before. There was some kind of tea and crumpets party going on inside. A squacking loudspeaker was telling people what order they’d be let in and where in the store they’d have to go.

Harvard Sq Map

Now I didn’t care too much about getting the book that night. It could wait till the next morning, when I knew I’d be able to walk into any bookstore in town and pick it up without jostling with random overweight/anorexic teenagers and over-enthusiastic parents. But I thought to myself, “Hey, let’s see what’s up at the Coop. Surely it’s less crazy down there.” Little did I know…

Now the venerable Harvard Cooperative Society - or the Coop - is where we bought textbooks as students, and where generations of tourists and distraught Yalies have bought their Crimson memorabilia. Barnes and Noble took over some time in the 90’s, so the Coop is not that different from a Barnes and Noble store anywhere else, except perhaps the obnoxious placement of Harvard insignias all over the place. It’s the largest bookstore in Harvard Square, however - three floors of books and memorabilia spread out over more than half a block.  For the last 10 years, it’s gradually sucked the life out of the entire independent book store industry in the Square. (Very You’ve Got Mail!) It seemed logical to me that kids and their crazy parents would congregate around the independent bookstores that still remain in the Square rather than some tame sellout place like the Coop.

But the Coop had come out for Hogwarts rather than Harvard that evening.  As I walked across to the entrance of the Coop (Blue X in the map),  I noticed what I thought was a small crowd. ”Hmmm… may be I’ll get the new Potter tonight after all,” I thought to myself. But as I tried to walk into the door, this bouncer stops me and says, “Hey you. There’s a line.” He points to what seemed to me a small assortment of weirdos about 10 feet away, all dressed in Gryffindor colors and intently reading Book Six.

I walk across Brattle Street to Curious George, a children’s book store (Blue CG on the map). It’s 11:30 now. There’s a bunch of kids and a couple of creepy looking middle-aged men pressing their noses against the large glass windows of CG and jumping excitedly ’cause their opening boxes of the new book inside. There’s a TV camera man inside, and CG owner (I presume) is being interviewed. I realize there are bouncers here too, and a line.

I now want to see how long these lines really are. I start with the line for the Coop. “How bad can this be, really?” I start walking away from the Coop and CG. The line continues to the edge of the block. “Can I enter the line here?” This irate guy in a Dumbledore outfit points around corner. The line wraps around the corner on Church Street!

I walk down Church Street. Hundreds, no, thousands of people in line, a majority dressed up for midnight madness, many sitting sitting down, some leafing through Book Six, many reading this Harry Potter quiz sheet and character list that the Coop apparently handed out earlier, all waiting, tired but excited. I walk the block to Palmer Street, and the line still continues, all the way to edge of Brattle Street.  And the line still continued, around the corner on Brattle Street, all the way to near the doorsteps of the Coop again. And still, people were joining in!  (I’ve marked the queue in green) I asked someone on Church Street how long they’d been waiting. Since six in the evening, she said. They’d come out and handed colored bracelets at around 8:30.

The Curious George line was smaller, but it’s a smaller store. It wrapped itself around the block. I’ve marked the queue on the map in pink. They had blocked the street to the right of CG. There were shooting lights into the sky.

12:01. Screams and cheers went up through the crowd. In a minute or so, the first customers walked out of the CG, and walked triumphantly past the crowd, lifting the book in victory. People cheered and took pictures.

I walked back along the Coop line again. I wanted to see how quickly it moved. Pretty fast! Apparently they were letting in a couple of hundred customers at a time. Still, at this rate, it would take hours.

“No way I’m getting the book tonight,” I thought to myself. I hadn’t  initially cared, but even I was affected by the joy etched onto the faces of customers emerging from the bookstores.

But what was that I was seeing across the street from the Coop, right beside the subway (T) stop? A small group of people coming out of the magazine store there with black bags, laughing loudly. One lady pulled out an orange Harry Potter book and screamed with joy. I ran across the street to the Out of Town News Stand (red X on the map) and a minute later, I was in. Behind me a crowd had gathered, as they realized that here was an arbitrage opportunity worthy of  blogging about.

A minute later - and a few words of Bangla with the shopkeeper (”Bangladeshi, bhai?” “Ji, bhai. Kemon acchen.” “Bhalo. Apne?” “Bhalo.” “Bari kothae, bhai?” “Rajshahi. Harry Potter?” “Den bhai. Special bag-tao pawa jabe?” “Ei je, bhai.” “Koto?”) - I was $26.31 poorer but a Harry Potter book and free bag richer. Surely, like every other person who had bought her book here, I too gazed upon the crowd of fools being herded into the Coop with a curious mixture of contempt and pity.

I glanced to my left, at the digital clock on the Cambridge Savings building beside the T-stop. It was 12:15. I had a long night of reading ahead of me.